


A Thousand, Thousand Darknesses

by MythopoeticReality



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 15:17:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12135255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythopoeticReality/pseuds/MythopoeticReality
Summary: The Story of the Basque sailor, told from his perspective





	A Thousand, Thousand Darknesses

I don’t know how long we’d been walking when we found the place. All of the day before and a good portion of that day as well. Ibarra  was against the entire thing from the start.  _“Were your brains knocked free when you fell off the side of the ship, Velasco? What do you think we’ll find if we move further inland besides more English?”_ He’d said. He wasn’t wrong of course, and a moment passed where all was silent. Zabala and I exchanged a look, and all three of us cast a glance towards the shattered shell of  _La Isabela_ looming over the shore. Her hull was torn nearly off and she’d buried herself halfway in the sand. I thank God every day that I was allowed to survive that wreck, and I did so at that very moment as well. My lips thinned into a line, a long breath pressing through my nose as I looked at her, reaching up and tangling my fingers back through my hair.

Driftwood sparked, cracking and snapping in the flames.  _“We can’t stay here.”_ Zabala was the one who finally spoke. He bowed his head down, warming his fingers by the fire. It’s light carved dark hollows where his eyes shold have been.  “ _There is no repairing her. We either move on, or starve and freeze to death here.”_

No one said anything more, but by the next morning we’d mixed the ashes with sand and were gone.

It isn’t the cold that sticks most in my memory of that day (though the earth was crusted with frost and my feet were moving with all the weight of two blocks of ice), nor is it the difficulty of the road (if a road it could be  _called._ A series of broken dirt paths across the rocks and scrub, the hills and heather fields of the English countryside. Better that then to encounter anyone. We  _dare_  not go near any village.) It was something else. I…I am not sure how to explain it. A weight in the air? A prickling on the back of my neck? An… _awareness_  that something was there. Watching us.  _Waiting_. Like a wolf watching a shepherd and his sheep.

There were ravens circling overhead. Even as it grew darker I could see them, their caws echoed over the endless moors.  

“I don’t like this…” I murmured, managing to tear my eyes from them, and turn back to my companions once more. “Don’t you feel it? Like there is some out there? Zabala? Ibarra?”

Ibarra snorted. “You sound like an old grandmother.”

“All I feel,” Zabala said, “is the frost biting through to my bones.”  He glanced around, “Is there nowhere we can stop for the night?”

We all began looking then, and I am the one who saw it. In the distance, atop a hill, a shadow like a cracked box stood. “Over there!” I pointed, and all of our paces picked up as we began moving towards it, renvigorated by the prospect of rest.

It was a barn, long since abandoned. Crumbling stone and a dust covered floor were what we found. The earth outside was barren of all save for a thick coating of hoarfrost. As the moon rose it all gleamed silver. There was something about the building – small and dark as it was, empty and abandoned – that made us slow in our pace. We stood outside for a moment, hesitating and glancing at one another. Zabala was the first to walk inside.

It would have been pitch black, were it not for the light that crept in though the narrow openings high on the walls all throught the room. Zabala slipped off, saying something about gathering kindling for a fire and calling first watch. Weary from the road, both Ibarra and I could only manage a short grunt,  dropping to the floor. We sat in silence, glancing up only as Zabala stepped into the barn again, and set about getting a fire going. It was not long, as I watched this, before I fell asleep.  

I dreamed that night of a man I had never seen before. Tall with sharp, handsome features, pale with dark hair, if the band of silver he wore on his head did not speak to his place as a King, his bearing surely did. He stood, silently, no word spoken, no action made. And he watched me. Despite myself, I edged bakwards, and my eyes darted towards the ground, unable to keep his gaze. Again that same feeling I’d gotten that morning rose up, prickling at the back of my neck.  _Like a wolf watching his prey…_

I groped at the empty air, bolting upright, my eyes snapping open as my heart pounded in my chest. The air tasted of snow and ice and the wind was a keening whistle in my ear. The light was faint and at first I struggled to remember where I was, even if I was indoors or out. As my eyes adjusted to the grey light spilling into the room I began, slowly, to remember. I forced my breaths to slow. Behind me I heard snoring. I stopped, twisting around to find Zabala nearly half folded over on himself and fallen asleep. With a long sigh I shook my head, and turned around once more.

That was when I saw him.

The light coming dawn outlined a raised spot on the floor, like a large step made of stone. As the light grew I saw more and more of it: A black throne, upon which  _he_  sat. Unmoving,  _unblinking._  From his long black hair to the robe he was wrapped in, he was the very same man from my dream. My heart stopped still, my breath catching in my throat.

“Ibarra! Zabala!” I spun around, shaking the other two awake. While Ibarra swiped a hand at and pushed me off, I only pointed back to the other end of the room. The two others froze still. They glanced between the man and me.

“Who is he?” Ibarra asked, his voice a low undertone.

“Why is he there?” Zabala, this time, “Where did he –”

“I don’t know! Only I – ” I cut myself off, unable to bring myself to say it.  _I saw him in my dreams?_ And what would they make of me then?

Our eyes all traced back to the man. If he were carven of stone he could not have been more still. And his eyes never left us. There seemed almost a warning there, and again that idea, of the wolf and the sheep came to my mind. Only, it occered to me now that  _we_  were the intruders,  _we_  were the ones who did not belong here.  _We_  were the wolves, and this…this was the shepherd come to make us flee.

“Zabala! Ibarra!” I hissed, not taking my eyes from the man, “We need to leave.  _Now.”_

Without another word, the three of us were on our feet again, stumbling out the door and onto the moors.

I am the only one who survives now. Zabala died within that very week from cold and a sick heart. Ibarra still longed for home and what became of him I can’t say. I remained here however, in Cumbria, finding work as a servant to a family of farmers and marrying my Lizzy, who worked on a farm nearby. I learned later who the man on that black throne was. John Uskglass, they said, The Raven King, the ruler of Northern England, and it made sense to me. A King, after all, does not generally tend to appreciate those who  threaten his own Kingdom.

I never found that barn again – I am not sure that I truly  _wish_ to, if I am being honest – but I know out there in the Dark, there is always the possibility that I will again meet the King. In every dark place I enter, I find myself repeating the words that I have been taught since coming here: “I greet thee, Lord, and bid thee welcome to my heart.” I am no threat, no wolf that needs to be slain, and I wish him to know that.


End file.
